A Birmingham builder has been dubbed "a miracle man" after he was impaled on a steel rod in an accident - and survived.

Keith Sweeney was working on a construction site on the corner of Church Street and Cornwall Street, in the city's business district, last July.

The 37-year-old, who lives in Hall Green, had lost his footing as he worked on the third floor, and fell backwards on to a metre-long metal bar.

It impaled him, entering his left buttock and exiting just above his right nipple, but managed to miss all his major organs.

The fight to save the carpenter's life, after he was airlifted to Selly Oak Hospital where it took surgeons more than four hours to remove the rod, will feature on ITV1's The Real ER tonight.

Yesterday Mr Sweeney, who is married with one daughter and whose wife, Orla, is expecting their second child, said: "I had been working on site as normal and was tightening something and somehow I think I lost my footing and fell backwards.

"I was conscious but I think once I saw the rod the adrenalin started pumping because it's all a bit blurry after that.

"The moment I realised what had happened my mind just filled up with everything, my family, friends and so on, it's very hard to explain.

"It took the firemen about an hour to cut me free, then the guys had to use the crane on site to lift me down in a cage to the ambulance.

"Then I was taken to Queensway where the air ambulance had landed.

"The last thing I remember is being loaded into the helicopter."

He was flown to Selly Oak where consultant vascular surgeon Rajiv Vohra and his team patiently remove the rod, which had narrowly missed many of his major organs - including the heart, lungs, and liver.

Mr Sweeney added: "When I came round in hospital, the rod was still sticking out, but I was chatting to my wife before I was put to sleep for surgery.

"The following day doctors showed me the X-ray they'd taken of the rod, and Mr Vohra calls me his 'miracle man' because the bar managed to take the only 'safe' route through my body."

Four days after the accident, he was allowed to go home to his family.

Mr Vohra explained this case was "extremely rare" and Mr Sweeney was lucky to be alive.

"I probably won't see anything like it again. Given the damage this could have caused, I suppose he is a miracle man," he said.

"There were ten or 11 major structures in the rod's path, all of which it had appeared to miss.

"He could easily have damaged one, two, three or even all of them - and damage to any one of them could potentially have been life-threatening. He is extremely lucky that it missed them all."

Nearly five months after the accident, Mr Sweeney still has regular check-ups and some nerve damage to his left leg, but he hopes to return to work in the New Year.

However he has not yet decided "whether or not I'll be back on a building site. "I do want to thank everyone who helped me from the firemen and paramedics at the scene to the two surgeons and the doctors and nurses who looked after me, because they were all brilliant."